( 005 )
THOMAS
❝ SINCE WE'RE IN THE MOOD FOR
SHARING OUR SECRETS... ❞

HOLLAND AND RAPUNZEL WERE FIERCELY HOLDING ONTO EACH OTHER AS THEY HID UNDERNEATH THE BAR OF THE SNUGGLY DUCKLING. Both were petrified to the bone, and for the same reasons, for the first time in their journey. Neither wanted to go home, neither wanted to separate so early in the travels. Neither got what they wanted yet, they couldn't be caught.

Rapunzel felt a tap on her shoulder, and frighteningly turned around slowly in case it was a guard, but instead one of the thugs. She smiles in relief, and he pulls down a pullee to pour beer, but was secretly a lever that revealed a secret tunnel that went underneath the forest.

"Go, live your dream." He whispers, and Rapunzel smiles hopefully, and Holland nods optimistically.

"I will."

"I wasn't talking to you, your dream sucks." He hits back to Holland, who rolls his eyes, muttering some form of complaint under his breath as he crawled through the tunnel.

Rapunzel looks up at the thug, her hand resting gently on his cheek. "Thank you, for everything." She whispers, kissing his cheek as she parted from some new and unlikely friends, also crawling through the tunnel, where Holland was waiting for her.

The two began walking once more, this time in silence, no conversation striken between the two acquaintances. Rapunzel opens her mouth to say something, but no speech leaves, her head recalling how cruel Holland was to her in the bar. She cowers her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Holland looks over and sees Rapunzel's hunched over frame, and couldn't help but frown. He had gotten her involved with pretty much everything he was running from right now, and yet persisted to act like a proud dick around her. He clears his throat, biting his lip tenderly. "I'm sorry, Rapunzel." He announces, and Rapunzel is immidiately intrigued and snaps her head up.

"You called me by my actual name, well done." Rapunzel sarcastically snaps back, her mood switched as she judges this was the appropriate punishment he should receive — a taste of his own medicine.

Holland nods, clicking his tounge. "Right. I deserve that, I know. Look, I just want to say, I was really unfair to you back at the bar and I should know better. I haven't been around people who I'm not working with for a long time, and I'm alone most of the time, I guess I'm just trying to keep up appearances."

Rapunzel takes a sharp intake of breath as she rubs her forearm gently back and forth, calming herself down. "I don't know you. After this, I'll never see you or anyone else again. You could choose to be anyone you wanted and you chose to be the judgemental narcissist. What for? For an ego?" Rapunzel rambles, processing her emotions as she lets go of all her built up stress.

Holland's eyes widen, taken aback for the first time in his experience with Rapunzel. "I- I'm sorry I didn't know─"

"Didn't know you were intentionally being cruel just so you can get your crown back and save three days of journeying? Come on, I'm not stupid." Rapunzel rolls her eyes, huffing as she pushes Holland's shoulder to walk past him in a hurry, hoping this tunnel was long enough to let her ride her tantrum out.

Holland outstretched his arm to try and catch Rapunzel's arm or hair, but he backtracked soon enough, realising maybe it was best to try and leave her alone, she said herself she never saw anyone.

Suddenly, something clicked inside of Holland's mind, and he furrows his eyebrows, jogging for a few seconds to catch up to his companion, tapping her shoulder. Rapunzel breathes out a huff of angry breath, one that a bull would use to tell people not to go near them, turning to Holland expectantly.

He clears his throat, slightly intimidated by the feistier version of the girl he had met just late this morning. "You said after me you'll never see me, or anyone, for the matter, again. What do you mean by that?"

Rapunzel was taken back from Holland's sudden question, biting her lip. She didn't want to say on risk that he'd take her straight home and the lanterns would be just as far as they were for all 19 years of her life. She tucks a hair behind her ear, soothing herself with the stroking of her forearm, clearing her throat. "Well, this sounds crazy, but──"

"Shut up, do you hear that?" Holland lowers his voice, and Rapunzel all at once takes notice of the trembling of the floor of the cave, and it was only drawing nearer with every second that passed.

Swinging around the corner were the guards and a singular horse, a white pure bred stallion, spotting Holland and immediately pointing at him, their charge surging faster. Holland grabs Rapunzel's hand in a moment of panic, pulling her along with a speedy run that was hard for the young woman to keep up with, but she eventually did, and their hands remained molded together as they did their best to escape what Rapunzel could only assume was a grim prison sentence.

A light was finally visible at the end of the tunnel, and both Holland and Rapunzel breathe a relieving sigh, but are forced to stop when Rapunzel notices the hundred foot drop at what was now a cliff face. Holland doesn't notice quite so quick, and Rapunzel leaves go of his hand to grab his shirt and pull him back from the edge of th3 cliff, and if she let go, he'd plummet to death.

The guards are finally caught up and the travelling companions are stuck, with an inevitable arrest and there'd be no chance of seeing the lanterns.

"I've waited many years for this moment, Holland." The chief approaches Holland slowly, a devious smirk on his face. Rapunzel was standing away from them, Holland having pushed her away to make sure she didn't get the force of what was going to happen.

Thinking on her toes, Rapunzel stares at the frying pan she solidly kept wrapped in her hand for the whole day, and coughs to get Holland's attention. He looks at her straight away. It was only a glance, but it was long enough for Rapunzel to throw the pan to his direction. He caught it with his left hand, using it straight away to whack the utensil across the chief's face, causing him to go unconscious straight away.

"Doink! Gotcha! Man, I got to get me one of these bad boys!" Holland cries out in joy, finding the usefulness in protecting himself with the pan, seeing why Rapunzel kept it so close to herself the entire time.

While Rapunzel swung on her hair to reach a nearby ( but unreachable ) ledge, Holland's extremely successful fight had been interrupted when the pan was knocked out of his hand and thrown down the sickening height. He turns his head, to his surprise to come face to face with the stallion, posessing a sword in his mouth. The horse threw several swings of the sword at Holland, who managed to dodge, but after a minute became winded. Rapunzel saw this, and bites her lip in concentration as she whistles for Holland's attention for the second time.

"Woah! Uh, hold up blondie, my hands are tied right now!" Holland calls out, shouting loudly out of releasing some of the tension of the fight, the only acceptable way of showing his fear.

"Just stick your hand up! Trust me!" She shouts back, and Holland furrows his eyebrows for a second as he processed the instruction, but he wasn't able to keep fighting with a horse much longer, so did as he was told, lifting up his hand. Second later, Rapunzel's infinitely long hair was wrapped around his hair, and pulls him off the cliff and began to swing down toward the ground of the caverns, but squeals when he recognises two other men charging at Holland, knives pointing sharply.

The Stabbingtons.

"Shit! Rapunzel, lift me up! Seriously, now!" Holland shrieks, and Rapunzel hauls him up a metre, missing the deathly swings of the Stabbingtons by inches, and he begins to laugh, giving them the finger.

"You just look ridiculous!" Holland taunts, but his face is unexpectedly met with a beam of a water passage that'll lead him safely to the ground. He groans in pain, sticking a thumbs up to Rapunzel. "Great aim, thanks."

"Sorry! This is all very new to me!" Rapunzel apologises, ready to pick up her hair and also get to the water passage, but now she had problems of her own. The stallion had kicked down a beam that supported the river, and it led him to the ledge Rapunzel had been standing for the last two minutes.

Holland looks at her with trust in his eyes, nodding gently. "You can do it! You get to the ground, I'll meet you down there, okay?"

Rapunzel didn't have much time, the horse ( who she heard was nicknamed Max by the chief ) almost across the beam he was basically tight roping right now. "I don't know, Holland."

"Trust me! You can!" Holland replies swiftly, using the words Rapunzel had only seconds before. She takes a deep breath, nodding in determination as she began to take the run up off the ledge, looping her hair on an exposed beam and jumping, just as Max was about to catch her with his teeth.

The two met eachother at the end of the water passage, just as the dam was bursting and sending gallons upon gallons of water shooting down the caverns from where the horse took down a beam. It was more than enough to drown everyone there.

The companions sped up once more, running with both half of Rapunzel's hair in their hands as the water engulfed the King's guard. The Stabbingtons followed suit seconds later, but Holland and Rapunzel were enough by just enough to see somewhere to go through. The water had caused a large stone that stood above them to start collapsing, and they ran even faster to reach the passage. But when they did, the stone landed on the ground, blocking them in, the only space small enough to get the dam water to enter the space, filling up fast.

They both screwed their eyes shut, knowing all their tricks and flying on hair to escape had gone to nothing.

Holland refused to believe this was for him at first, diving into the already four foot deep water to try and see if there was any way they could get out this time, but his eyesight was of no use because it was so dark.

He resurfaces, panting to regain the breath he had been holding. "I can't see, it's too dark. There's no way out."

Rapunzel shakes her head, the silent tears in her eyes sprinting down her cheeks, also not accepting her ill-mannered fate. Wordlessly, she also dives in to try and see if Holland had missed anything, but he quickly takes her out. When he pulled her up to stare at his face, he moves the wet hair from her eyes, his hands softly holding her cheeks. "It's no use, it's pitch black."

Still silent, Rapunzel cries harder, the only sounds coming from her mouth were her pained and guilty screams of tears. "I should've just stayed where I was, this is all my fault. I'm so sorry, Holland."

There was a few more moments of silence, the water still pouring in and rising to Rapunzel's abdomen now, and only getting higher, before another word was said. "Thomas." Holland whispered, and Rapunzel raises her brows in confusion.

"Since we're in the mood to share our secrets this evening, and we're about to die, my real name is Thomas Holland. My first name is Thomas." Holland, or Thomas, admitted, feeling sheepish as he reveals his deepest secret, but it somehow felt okay in the presence of someone he's dying with.

Rapunzel nervously laughs, clutching onto her hair. "I have magic hair that glows when I sing!"

"What?" Holland confusedly asks, but the revalation just hits Rapunzel, and she grins, tilting her chin upward so she could talk without water getting in her mouth.

"I have magic freakin' hair that glows! Flower gleam and glow──"

INDIA TALKS!

extra long bc i abandoned this book and all my other ones to have a mental breakdown for like two weeks bc school am i right

pls vote and comment ! we hit 1k baby ! makes me sososososososo happy